Friday, July 29, 2016

I found this in the Letters section of an 80s Classic Bike Magazine. Looks like someone was experimenting with a liquid-cooled version of the 1930s flathead 500 single plodder. I wonder if anyone ever found any more information?

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Photographed at the Spruce Head Marine in Maine, this landing craft seems to have had a civilian career around the islands of Penobscot Bay. No other info on the craft, despite the LST lettering, it doesn't match the description of LST-1190

This beautiful art deco tape dispenser, made of cast iron and dispensing tape from 3" rolls, weighs about 3.5 lbs, providing a more than stable device for the job, also reduces the chance of people borrowing it.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Prentiss Vice was organized by John and Edwin Mulfordin Montour Falls, NY in 1877. It appears that they had acquired the Hall Manufacturing Company, who employed a man named Mason Prentiss, who held US Patent 75,576, issued March 17, 1868 for a bench vise.

Although the ad mentions a NYC address, this seems to be only the sales or head office, Prentiss Vises were manufactured by Bagley & Sewall in Watertown, NY. As is common with this era of tool manufacturers many companies became intertwined and in 1925 the Prentiss Vise Company completed the purchase of the Henry Cheney Hammer Company.In 1947 The Prentiss Vise Company, including the Cheney Hammer division, was sold to the Charles Parker Company of Meriden, Connecticut.

In 1925 the new Citroen B-12 was billed as the first all-steel body car. Body panels and and fenders had been made by a metal stamping process that used large 100 ton presses to press steel steel into compound shapes. In fact this process had been in use for several years in North America. Judging by what appears to be chair caning on the body, indicates that they weren't quite comfortable leaving organic materials.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Twenty of these huge four engine flying boats were built for US navy use in WW2, they arrived too late for wartime service, and only five were completed, serving as transports for a decade. One remains, in use as a water bomber in British Columbia.

Larry Milberry, Aviation in Canada, McGraw-Hill Ryerson 1979

Hawaii Mars in the late seventies, owned by Forest Industries and used for firefighting.

Welam A Shrader; Fifty years of Flight A chronicle of the aviation industry in America 1903-1953 Eaton Manufacturung 1953

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Charles Parker was born in 1809 and became one of Connecticut’s leading industrialists. He started his manufacturing career inventing and producing coffee mills in a small shop in 1832. By 1860, he owned several large factories and employed hundreds of people, in and around Meriden. Vises were only one of his products, Parker products included hardware and house wares, flatware, clocks, lamps, piano stools and benches, coffee mills, industrial machinery, and, after 1862, guns. His descendants carried on his businesses until 1957. I mentioned the Parker vise to a tool-centric friend who took me down to see the one he has had for years. About a hundred years old now, still doing fine.

The former Governor-General of Canada, John Campbell- better known by his title, the Marquis of Lorne, wrote an article about the new transcontinental railway for the British journal "Good Words". In 1886 the Canadian Pacific Railway reprinted this article, with illustrations by the Marquis's wife, Princess Louise as their first tourist promotional pamphlet.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Not your average home shop tool, from the Vintage Machinery site comes this info about the company. American Tool Works Co.was formed in 1898 as a reorganization of Davis & Egan. Owned by the Schott family of Cincinnati, the firm manufactured engine lathes (including the well known American Pacemaker), shapers, planers, radial drills, tracer lathes, and other machine tools. In 1969 it was absorbed by another company.

The remnants of this company is now owned by Bourn & Koch; that firm is still able to provide information on most of the old American Tool Works machines.

T26 light infantry tanks on parade in the Soviet Union. Approximately 11,000 of these tanks were built from 1932 till 1941 and some remained in service till the end of WW2. The vehicle was a development of the British Vickers 6 Ton tank, designed as a simple and easily maintained light tank for export to less technologically advanced counties. Over the years the T26 was produced in several configurations and many different iterations.

Visiting Picton On. on the weekend, we came upon this "light renovation job" on Main St. According to a recent article, after the building had been recently purchased, inspections were made after discovering that the roof had been leaking and appropriate repairs were being considered. In the end, not much more than three brick walls remain as a basis for the total rebuild.